Peter Pan Syndrome
by MiHo13
Summary: Modern retelling of Peter Pan wherein Wendy is a twenty-something year old English major and Peter is the is leader of one half of the local gangs. He kidnaps her and then all the fun starts. Think Peter Pan meets West Side Story, maybe with a wicked stepmother thrown in and drugs, sex, and alcohol to tie it all together. PeterXWendy, future smut.
1. Chapter 1

**So fun fact...**

** It's been well over a year since I last wrote any fan fiction. In efforts to reawaken my creative spirit, or something like that, I've decided to delete many of my old fics and start fresh. This is the beginning and I can only hope you'll enjoy it. Modern day Peter Pan fanfic, borrowed some names and a little bit of a concept, but everything else is mine.**

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With hearing everything is selective. Most people don't think so, some think they have inhuman ability to hear everything around them at once. Well the secret is, we don't. Our hearing comes in and out, like the focus and blurs in our vision. Like every other sense it has its weaknesses, our hearing does. Only maybe it isn't always a weakness.

But touch induces focus, hearing usually.

"Wendy?" her hand, nails perfectly manicured and pearl bracelet spinning, sits on my wrist. "Wendy did you hear what I asked?"

I pushed a forkful of spinach salad into my mouth and nodded at her, "Hm."

"I asked if you've written anything lately?" she asks, annoyed. When she pulls her wrist back, I can feel the tickle of her nails. Beside me, Dad is stirring his soup, the metal of his spoon clanging on the sides of his bowl. At the table behind us a woman is laughing, wheezing at the edge of it. The spinach crunches in my mouth. Selective hearing is so much easier when interaction isn't necessary.

I swallow. "Well a paper I wrote for my 429 class was published in an online magazine."

"Oh that's nice, what was it about?" she asked, propping her elbows on the table and placing her chin in her folded hands. I raised my eyebrow at her, because since was she interested in my writing. She never questioned me about it and the few times I ventured enough to talk to her about it her eyes glazed over and wondered off the same way they did when she watched anything that wasn't Fox news.

"It was a feminist article about why it's common for guys not to take a hint at social outings and how saying you have a boyfriend is the easiest way to get rid of them. Basically the overall point is that they respect other men more than they do women, which I why I have a boyfriend is a better deterrent than no," I told her. With Mary there was treading lightly and there was diving right in, and today I was in no mood to take my time.

Her smile stayed on her face, but instead it changed from the kind with upturned corners to down turned corners, a grimace, the face she used when she hosted philanthropy events and had to deal with any of the people she was actually trying to help rather than the people who were donating.

"So all the feministy stuff, you're still into it," she said, her voice measured, hand unfolding and pushing around the food she had only taken a few bites of. I wolfed down a few more bites of my spinach salad, not responding. "You know I don't see the problem with them respecting other men, people should just respect people no matter what and thinking you're better than some young man who is just trying to be nice to you at an outing isn't a decent thing to write about."

I felt my face get it hot, good job diving in Wendy.

"But that's exactly the point they aren't treating the women with respect-"

"Well enough of that nonsense," she said, cutting me off and glancing towards my dad. "Your father and I have something we would like to talk to you about."

I looked over at my Dad, still stirring his soup. I hardly doubted he had anything to stay. He had always been quite, but even since Mary had entered our lives he had basically become mute. She was two hundred plus pounds of blond hair and champagne lipstick, recently widowed one percenter with two pothead sons being towed along for the ride. And somehow she had wheedled her way into my Dad's life where she decided to improve everything in our lower middle class life. Mary Ansell Darling, it just rolls off the tongue, like we were meant to be, she would say, to anyone and everyone, since the wedding at the beginning of summer.

"Oh, I'm thrilled to hear it," I said. She grinned, sarcasm, apparently, not her forte.

"Well, Wendy, you're going into your junior year of college, which means you've gotten most of your general education classes out the way, and so it's the perfect time to change your major, you won't have to wait through so many classes to jump right into your study," she explained, gripping my father's hand, as though he provided for half of what she was saying. She had this talk with me before, and every time I tuned her out.

"Mary, there's nothing wrong with my major. I like English, reading and writing, those are the only things I've very really loved doing. I've told you before, I'm not changing my major," I said, leaning back. Maybe the the more physical space I put between me and Mary the less of the urge I would have to scream at her.

"But there's no career in it Wendy, there's no guarantee, and besides nothing is harder to marry than a novelist," she told me, her grimace still plastered on. It would all be so much easier on me if she could just look frazzled, if I could just wipe that look off her face and yell at her right now. My anger would feel so much more justified if she looked angry too. I knew she was, but really, it was all about appearances to her.

"Mary I'm only twenty, believe me when I say getting married is not something I'm thinking about anytime soon," I said and pulled my hands into my lap to grip my seat. Even tempered voice required some hidden away white knuckles.

"Oh sweetie, that's because you haven't met the right guy yet. You'll find him soon," her voice was suddenly sympathetic, endearing. How many times had she told me, Wendy, you just need to find yourself a man.

"I really don't see what a guy has to do with my career," I said between tight lips. Another squeeze into the seat, my nails were digging into the leather. Mary just had this unique gift of making me angrier than anyone else.

"That's what we're saying Wendy, you need to get serious about a career. And we've discussed it, and we've talked about it, and we refuse to pay for your education unless you choose a major with a large job market. We just can't put faith in an English major," she told me, as she did her sneaky little hands clasped unto Dad's harder. I looked at him frantically, the pit of the news rolling in my stomach. His eyes were blank, and he shrugged and turned away, looking out the window and casting his face in sunshine.

As selfish and terrible as it was to say the one advantage of Mary joining our family was her money, and in her money came a debt free education. I had a scholarship that covered half my tuition; there had been too much time in high spent in after school jobs rather than studying towards a more credible SAT score. I had to take out loans the first two years to cover the difference, but when Mary entered the picture I knew I wouldn't have to. It was thrilling, watching them take their vows, to think about graduating with less then ten thousand dollars in debt. Some fantasy, eh?

"Dad," I said, turning to him, because looking at Mary's face wasn't really an option in my emotional range at the moment. "Dad, tell me you won't do this. You told me it was my life, I could do whatever I wanted. Not that I'd have to give into someone's demands of what I should do with my life."

"We just think it would be best Wendy, I mean Mary had a prominent degree in school, and look where she is now, look at what she has done for us," he told me, and this time his eyes weren't blank. They tried to tell me they were trying the best they were can, that he was giving me the life he had always wanted to give me, and in that involved some compromise. I didn't buy into that bullshit. Because Mary was sitting here with a bachelors in communication she never used because right after her undergrad she got knocked up and became some up and coming senator's trophy wife.

"I'm not going to change my major," I said between clenched teeth. I looked at Mary, her eyes crinkled in the corners, her skin too tan and cheeks and chin to flabby. She looked like a potato with a shattered white smile and demonically lined eyes.

"Then what are you going to do then Wendy?" she asked, she measured her words. I could sense what she didn't want, what others were already pausing at their tables to look at. A watched pot never boils, or sometimes it boils too hard.

"I guess I'll just have to fucking figure out," I said evenly, but loud, loud enough so that I knew the surrounding tables could hear me. I pulled my bag over my shoulder and walked out too quickly to see the blush on Mary's face, because everyone was so interested in what her hellish step daughter was doing now.

Outside I felt better. The air had always helped me, albeit a little humid and half glowing in between night and day, everything cast in murky orange. And then it settled in on me, the heaviness in my stomach, rolling itself around and making my arms shake. The semester started in two weeks, too late to take out a loan, and any check the Mary had sent or would have plan on sending would be void. I could pull into my savings, as measly as it was, and get part of the tuition paid. But even with that and the scholarship I'd still owe a little over two thousand.

"Hey, Wendy!"

The call made me jump and drop my bag, half the contents spilling out. They laughed as I dropped to my knees and stuffed them back in. When I stood I saw them standing in the middle of the alley, on the side of the restaurant. They passed a joint between their fingers. I had nearly forgotten about Micheal and John, they had left the meal about ten minutes before and I wondered if Mary had asked them to on purpose.

"Weed in stark daylight, good job boys, I'm proud," I said as I walked over to them. They didn't effect me anywhere as close as their mother and I had a half hour to kill before the next bus.

"It's sunset," John said before taking a deep drag. Despite being older than both of them, they towered over me, John with thick shoulders and a blonde crew cut. His face always varied shades of pink and his lips turned up in such a way that he always looked like he was on the edge of parting his lips an saying something. For the dinner occasion he had pulled on a black polo and khaki pants, which didn't at all like being shoved over the variable football muscles he had. Micheal was lanky, like a tree and a mop of hair hanging lopsided on his head.

"Whatever," I said, grabbing the joint from his fingers and took my own drag. My throat burned and my nose filled up with an acrid itch. I sputtered out puffs of smoke and shoved the join at Micheal. "Holy shit, what kind of weed is that?"

"Only the dankest shit around," Micheal said and took a long, slow drag. I raised my eyebrows at him, not accustomed to his sudden use of slang, then again the majority of my interactions with my step brothers usually happened around a dinner table with Mary looming over us.

I leaned against the brick of the alley listened to noise echo from clattering dishes in the kitchen, a man calling out to lower something carefully, the scream of a seagull, the slap of the waves against the pier. Static, all of it.

"Does it ever just bother you, how she thinks she owns everything?" I said and shook my head as John tried to pass the joint to me. "I mean, John, what does she want you to do?"

"Play pro ball, just like I wanna, she's not forcing me into anything," he said, his lips turning up in a grin that said he was proud of himself. He had just finished his freshman year at the state school about two hours away, Despite being on the team his play time totaled to about seven minutes during the hi first season. I'm sure his ass and the bench knew each other very well.

"What about you Micheal, I mean you're about to enter your senior year, what do you wanna do, you're thinking about it right?" I asked. I was trying to find some budge, some grip that these boys who had grown up with that woman and knew just how hard she could be to deal with.

"I don't know Mom wants me to be an accountant, so I'll probably do that," he said. Unbelievable. John I expected to be a lost cause, Micheal I held more hope for.

"And you're just gonna do what she wants, not figure out what you want to do on your own, or what you're really passionate about?" I asked. They scoffed at me, almost in unison, the sharp hits of their breaths falling just past one another.

"Look Wendy, it's just easier to listen to her. She's crazy and can make your life hell and she will," Micheal informed me. He seemed sad to me in that moment, he was so close to the newest part of his life and already she was ruining it for him.

"Whatever," I said, shaking my head. Even from one hit I could fell the numbing in my ears, drowning out all the background noise, killing the static. "I just wanna forget this dinner ever happened and maybe the next few hours too."

"Oh I could occupy a few of your hours," John said, grabbing at my waist and pulling me back against his bulk. I snatched myself away, the static suddenly back.

"Oh, fuck you," I said, walking away. Half an hour at the bus stop was better than this.

"That's the point Wendy. I mean, we're not even real siblings," he said as I walked away. I didn't hear the rest, I turned the weakness into an advantage again.

When unlocked the the door to my apartment and pushed it open I heard someone go "oh shit" and walked into Lily pulling her shirt back over her head and a lump under the blanket thrown over the couch that was obviously her boyfriend.

"Hey," she said turning around to me. I glanced at the floor where her bra was still laying and smirked.

"You can come out now Rufio, I won't bite," I said glancing over at the wiggling lump. Lily blushed just in time for his head to peak out from under the covers. He was six feet of smiling cheeks and messy bed head. Lily had picked him up her freshman year at community college and brought him along with she matriculated after two years. Her reasoning for them working out so well was that she would probably never find someone else who was Japanese Jewish. As far as I knew Rufio wasn't his real name but it was the only thing she had called him since I met him.

"Heya Wendy, rough day?" he asked, pulling out his full body and settling into a sitting position. His pants, I noticed, were unbuttoned and unzipped.

"Actually, pretty bad." I said, sitting down my bags. I was sweating because somehow the humidity seemed to double while I sat at the bus stop, still feeling John's hand burn at my hip.

"Well why don't you sit down and tell Doctor Rufio while my lady friend, uh freshens up," he said, taking a quick and timid glance down at Lily' bra. She blushed again and snatched it away while I sat down beside him. Among the missing bra other things seemed amiss with Lily, like her messy hair and smudged lipstick. The color didn't suit Rufio as well it suited her. Like his unzipped pants, I didn't feel it was needed to note it to him.

"Hey could you turn the the AC as you go?" I asked as she disappeared down the hall towards her room. Lily had been my best friend since sixth grade and we had navigated the awkwardness of puberty together through petty fights and sleepovers. By senior year of high school I imagined us as kind of an inseparable two that people would point to when asked what the definition of best friends were. But I had went to university and she to community college, two years of separation strung together through letters and facebook posts, telephone calls and skype dates. And finally like we had planned our senior year, we found an apartment of our own after she transferred to big girl school. But despite all the connections we kept up it was different, she brought with her a a boyfriend who helped us with rent, a new attitude, and an innocence completely washed away. When we left high school her most scandalous story was a sloppy make out with some junior who pawed at her breasts in the band closet, and she came back to me having tried out sex in more positions and places with her one partner than I had with my four. So, sometimes that entailed me walking in on her and Rufio on said sexual adventures.

"So...listening," Rufio said, I drew my attention back to him, taking my eyes away from the door where Lily had disappeared. There was a click and the AC buzzed to life, sending cold air on my sweating skin.

"It's Mary...she's terrible," I told him, letting the anger pour back into me. It wasn't a rush now, just slow drops making thier way through my veins. It was all overshadowed by the worry that was my burgeoning tuition fees. Lily came back out, everything disheveled now neat.

"What did she do this time?" she asked, settling herself at Rufio's side, half in his lap and half out. It was still weird to see her so intimate and comfortable with a person who was neither me nor family.

"Well she wants me to change my major, like usual, but this time it came with problems. She said if I don't change my major she's not paying for the second half of my tuition. And so I said no," I spilled out. It felt easier telling than relaying it in my head, far leas dramatic, I suppose.

"What the hell, that's basically the most bitch move to pull on you," Lily said and in her anger I found happiness, though not enough to erase the worry.

"Yeah I know, and with two weeks it's too late to get any loans."

"Bu can't you try a payment plan?" Rufio asked, he knew this because he had one set up on his own.

"Yeah but it's a couple hundred a week, right?" I asked and he nodded. "But I don't make as much as you, that couple hundred I make a week needs to go towards rent."

"That fucking sucks."

"I know, just I hate her so much, and it's not just this. She makes me so angry all the time with the most insignificant of things. Like I told her about that paper I got published today and she basically called it stupid. It's like the rebellious teenager phase I never had," I said. It felt good to be talking to Lily, well mostly to her. I didn't mind Rufio at all, he was sweet but she had been back in life three months now and we had yet to really connected. It wasn't that we didn't talk and it wasn't that we didn't get along just like we used too, but it also wasn't crying over stupid movies together and staying up late and putting each other to sleep with our stories about our lives.

"Wendy, a rebel, no," she said a laugh edging in her voice. It was true because generally I wasn't an angry person but I never really had good reason to be.

"I even stormed out of the restaurant, you should of seen me, you would've been proud," I said, smiling at them. It felt better, lighter, like I could pretend I didn't suddenly have intense money problems to deal with.

"Oh man, I don't believe you, that's not my best friend, she doesn't storm out of restaurants."

"Oh, she does. She's even stole some library books before too," I said. Rufio panned back and forth between us, his head flashing this way and that.

"Oh well, that definitely sounds like her," she laughed. At least one third of my book collection was contraband I had taken from libraries, books I just couldn't get enough of. I would turn them and then later sneak them into my bag. Nothing could be traced back to me once I turned them in. I happened in third grade once and the became a lifelong habit.

"So..." she said. "Rufio and I are gonna go meet up with Zach and Alison and then later on we're all gonna go to the bar. If you want you should join us and forget about your wicked stepmother for a few hours. We can figure out later tonight what we're gonna do. I won't have you dropping out of school," Lily said and for a moment my stomach dropped. We had been just on edge, joking again, playing around and finding our way back through the cracks that had developed over the past few years. But there was always some distraction.

"Sure, sure, I need to shower anyway," I said and pulled myself up from the couch. "Have fun at Zach and Alison's and go get em tiger!"

Later on when I walked in the bar I thought about how stupid it was, how we said phrases like that in middle school to each other and how she wouldn't remember. She hadn't said anything back. When I had searched around the entire bar and couldn't find her I felt even stupider. And then I felt my phone buzz.

_L : still at zack and alison's we're playing cards against humanity that also involves shots and i'm winning, be there when game is over_

I sank in my chair pushed my hands through my hair, a night alone at the bar was not what I needed and I probably should have just gone home and buried myself in some contraband.

"You look like you have problems," one of the bartenders said to me. I sat up and looked at him, he was tall and round, like a beach ball stuck on some legs. He had cherubic look to his face, like his six year old face decided to stop catching up with the rest of his round body.

"Um, kind of," I said. I wasn't used to strangers talking to me in bars, much less the bartenders.

"Well you wanna lay em out?" he said. He looked a little older than me but I couldn't tell because of the face. And I couldn't help but think why they would someone who still looked like a child making their drinks.

"You know this isn't a movie, I don't have some deep personal talk with the bartender and learn the solution to my life problems," I said. I was learning quick enough that a day ruined by Mary was a day where I turned into a bitch.

"Wasn't thinking so, but just if you wanted to I'm okay for talking," he said, and turned back to some other customers. It had always been too dark in here for me, and too loud. Couples were flirting and couples were fighting, and all around me there was the sound, the clanking of drinks, the laughter, the terrible cover band hovering on a two foot stage at the other side of bar. It didn't collide well. It didn't make static.

"Here you go," chubby said and plopped a shot glass in front of me. It was already filled, to the brim, sloshing over just a little bit. It was a glowing green, eerie in a way. It reminded me vaguely of the slime on Nickelodeon shows when I was a kid.

"What's this?" I asked looking up at him, his face held a wide toothed grin that managed to make him even younger looking.

"One of our patrons was nice enough to buy you a shot."

I let out a sigh. "You know, I'm probably going to come off as bitchy for this but I really don't care. I had this really weird day and I really just don't wanna think about anything for the next two weeks, I just wanna drown in the noise of the bar or go home of something but what I definitely don't want to do is take a shot from a stranger in a bar. You see, I'm really not a fan of being kidnapped and raped."

"I can promise you if you take that shot, you won't get raped or anything," he said and for a second in those rosy, glowing cheeks I believed.

"You know I'm not twenty one, right?" I said and held up my hand with that lacked the wristband that anyone over twenty one was blessed with. He shrugged his shoulders and turned to another customer. I looked at the shot again, because it really seemed to be glowing, like emitting it own source of life from inside.

"It's not absinthe, is it? That's supposed to be green?" I asked and regretted how small my voice sounded for a moment. Because I shouldn't care what was in it, because someone had bought me a shot at the bar, the guy providing the alcohol didn't care that I was underage, and I was grumpy.

I lifted it up with shaky hands, titled back my head and felt it burn down my throat and as it spit fire into my stomach I heard him say "It's called a Nevershot because once you take it you never wanna come back again."

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**And...done.**

**So, apologies first for all the info dumping in this chapter. I just needed to establish quite a few characters, and I know it's a bit to take in but needed to be done and I didn't wanna break into two chapters because I really just like cliff hanger endings. **

**Anyways, leave me a review, let me know what you think. Newest chapter will be out Wednesday.**


	2. Chapter 2

**So pause in writing. Going to get back on top of things with this fic. **

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I was never one of those people who was disoriented by strange places. I could always remember the moment between sleeping and dreaming. The moment where my body was awake but my mind was already far off, flying away, balancing on the edge of awake and dreaming. This time, however, I was disoriented. My head was not foggy or swollen, not anything that could be partnered with heavy drinking, blacking out, and remembering nothing. I was not hungover. But I heard voices and they felt far away, like something playing on the TV in another room.

I was not in my bed, the little rough mattress with stuffed animals I'd held onto since childhood. This foreign bed was huge and the air was off, it didn't smell like my books or my clothes. I felt like I was balancing on the edge again and everything I was feeling and hearing wasn't here but a dream world, spilling over into being awake. If I waited it would go away.

I kept my eyes closed and listened, there were voices.

"I can't believe you brought her here. I thought we agreed, even if we were going to take her we were going to wait. Wait until we could handle her," someone said, a woman. And she was angry, but her voice sounded like bells, dancing in the air.

There was a scoff, a laugh. A laugh so infectious and bright and cocky all at the same time it sounded almost impossible. It tickled its way through the air and over my skin, rising up goosebumps.

"The girl was digging herself into a rut, she was about to find out she couldn't dig any deeper. It was time to act," someone else said. This was a man it seemed vaguely familiar, maybe a stranger from another night's dream.

"I didn't ask you, now did I?" the woman's voice again this time, the bells of it chiming angrily through the veil of my half sleep. I'll be up soon, maybe I fell asleep on the couch, that's why it felt so wrong. The voices and the bed, it would all be gone, swallowed back into my dream. Lily will make me pancakes, and Rufio will pick on me for drinking myself into black out. It must have been a hell of a night, to do that to me, what all had I drunk?

And then I remembered the glowing green shot, the way it burned down my throat. It had been called a never shot, hadn't it? Because you never...

That's when I jumped up, when I opened my eyes. Because someone slammed open a pair of doors I saw were suddenly at the other side of my room. I saw then I hadn't been balancing on the edge of sleep but instead hardwood from top to bottom, in a massive bed and it's soft white covers. Windows slotted the top of the walls, letting in sunlight and revealing and it full of dust, all falling over furniture that was covered in notebooks and files, scattered pages here and there, candles with blackened wicks and hard wax that dripped over the sides of end tables and dressers. And there were three people at the door, one still in the hallway, who looked short and slight, I barely saw her before she turned away.

Her hips were wide and her hair was cut short, blonde and fanning just around her head. But she was down the hall before I saw more. The others, one I knew, he was the bartender from the night before. He was just the same, the face of a boy, all sweet and innocent, and the body of a man, one whose beer belly was protruding and arms were too heavy.

It's when I saw him that I was scared, when I started shaking and felt my heart pounding in every part of me. I grasped the covers and pulled them around me.

"You said I wouldn't be raped or kidnapped!" I shouted out at him, because apparently I was angry, and that's what I felt pumping through my veins. It surprised me how little my fear suppressed that anger.

"Hm, I said you wouldn't get raped, I didn't promise no kidnapping. Besides how I see it you're not a kid, so it kind of ruins that whole concept, doesn't it?" he told me and I pulled the blankets tighter. And in the moment I couldn't breath, and if I tried anything I could just hear the sound of my tight breathing, but felt no relief. But then I heard it again, the laugh.

"Did you like it, the nevershot? Kind of a stupid name when you think of it, brewed it up myself. There's no roofies or anything, just something I made very special. It puts you to sleep gently, just like a baby, and there's not a single aftereffect. A little bit of alcohol for the burn, and the rest is a trade secret. But you can't blame Toodles here for giving it to you, he was only listening to me," the voice said, and just like the laugh it seemed impossible. Deep and confident, on the edge of cocky. A voice that knew it was impressive and still drew me in.

The voice belonged to the third person, the one who just stepped into the sunlight. He was a boy, no a man. He looked like both but not like the other guy. He was at least my age, maybe a little younger or maybe a little older, dressed in jeans and a green shirt that looked soft and worn. He was tan and freckled, thin but still muscular. But it was his face that captured me, the rosy lips pulled up in a smug grin, the strong jaw but soft cheeks, hair messy and auburn. But most of all his eyes, they were like a child's big and dark green, the softest of crinkling in the corner. This guy, whoever he was, was undeniably one of the most attractive human beings I had ever seen. And my heart was still pounding only I wasn't sure if I was scared anymore.

When he moved closer I pulled myself back, pulling the cover with me and smashing myself into the pillows and headboard. I could still feel the goosebumps tingling on my arms, and my skin felt flushed, in bright patches that burned across my cheeks and chin and danced around my collarbone.

"Don't be scared Wendy Darling. I'm Peter Pan, and I want to welcome you to Neverland."

"What is this place?" I stammered out.

"Like I said, it's Neverland. The place people wanna go when they never want to come back home again," he answered, and he backed up, spinning himself around the bar of the bed and shuffling some papers off of a dresser and leaning on it. But he kept staring at me, and in the light I could see how long the lashes were that framed his eyes. I couldn't keep my eyes off him, and I didn't even notice the other man, Toodles, had left.

I was still scared, though. Scared of the person in front of me, scared of being in a place I didn't know with a massively attractive boy I didn't know. Stockholm Syndrome wasn't something I was fond of catching, and the fact that I was a lot less panicked about this than I should be kept freaking me out. It was like I had to tell myself, you should be panicking right now, you should be jumping up and screaming, but I couldn't.

"Why am I here?" I asked, tentatively, because he was still looking at me and the patches of red were blooming all around my body. It's strange thing to realize, that no one ever directly looks at you when they're speaking and you're speaking—but Peter Pan did.

"You're here because I wanted you here. I've been watching you for a while, stalking if you wanna call it that, and I thought I'd offer you a proposition. It seemed like the right time, everything is going south for you anyway, so why not ask you if you wanna run away to Neverland?" he said, hopping on top of the dresser, sitting with his legs crossed over wax and paperwork. It was a bit to take in, that he had been watching me. And that, somehow, I was unaware of it. I became suddenly aware of all the embarrassing and horrible things I had done in the last few weeks, all the times I just didn't care and looked outright terrible. But my mortification was misdirected, because instead of being scared that a stranger had been following me, I was embarrassed by how I had looked.

"What do you mean, ask?" I said, and I didn't look at him this time because he still wouldn't take his eyes off me. I pulled the blanket through my fingers shaking a little, my embarrassment burning around me like hot coals.

"I mean I just wanted to show you around the place, see if you like it. And if you do, you can stay. If not you're free to go on your merry way with you best friend that doesn't care and your bitch of a stepmother," he said, and I was more scared then because the reality that he had actually been following me set in. And somehow it set the world I was in into a more concrete place. I really was in a different place with strangers, one of which (or maybe more) who had been following me. Yet somehow, I still wasn't as scared as I should of been.

And I didn't say anything back because I didn't know what to say, only that I wanted to look at him again, to make sure he was real and certain and I wasn't still caught in some dream. That's what he looked like to me, sounded like to me. Some unreal person who was caught in the layers of my consciousness.

"I'll give you some time to think Wendy Darling," he said and with that he went out the door, I heard the click of it closing behind him. I buried myself in the covers, feeling the embarrassment cooling off and the goosebumps fading away. But a rock still rolled around in my stomach, hitting the sides, and it wouldn't let me get back to sleep, wouldn't let me pretend it still wasn't happening. When I couldn't stand it anymore I got up, because while I was here I might as well see what Neverland was.

* * *

Neverland was a building, three stories high and immaculately designed, an abandoned hotel. Somewhere on the far side of town, where I could smell the ocean but couldn't see it, but I didn't know about any of that yet. Instead I was walking out of the room and Peter Pan was leaning against the side of the door, chewing absently on the end of the cigarette and when he walked out, he held it out to me with a lighter in his other hand. His hands were big, the type that could wrap around my neck. The type, I thought, that could crush me. But they had freckles, like the rest of him, and it was that, that made me think he wasn't going to use those hands to hurt.

I shook my head, and he tossed it over his shoulder and pocketed the lighter. "I was never a fan of them myself, just figured I'd offer."

He turned and started heading down the hall, pausing just for a second, to smile back at me. "You coming Wendy Darling?"

His smile was one of those things that people would seek out for their whole lives, and you catch it every now and then in glimpses of people. But it was a rarity, a smile so natural and unburdened that it could only be found in children. And that was Peter Pan, a smile curved at each corner that lit up his whole face.

He didn't wait for an answer when he walked down the hallway and I found myself following after him, because what else could I do. There was always the moment in fiction, when the person encounters something impossible to describe, fantastical or scary, a sudden crippling thing that turns there world upside down. I always found myself annoyed and exasperated by the characters who encountered such things, because they seemed to handle the situations so easily. A few minutes of panicking and suddenly everything was okay, they had accepted their fate and the story moved own. Somehow I was convinced if it ever happened to me I wouldn't do the same, I would question everything maybe until the end. Impossible things didn't happen for me. If this was my moment, however, I was accepting it more than I could ever think. Because it was still life, and it was still time, and it tugged me along with the masses.

"Any questions you have Miss Darling, I do ask that you save for the end of the tour. For now just follow and listen, let me paint you a tale and seduce you into my story," Peter said ahead of me and somehow I could hear a smile in his voice, the way stifled laughter found its way into the vibration of a telephone call. I stayed behind him, following the patterns of his feet, but looking around at the same time as well.

We were making our way down a long hallway, wallpaper peeling and more wooden doors passing through with each step. The carpet was beige, stained by years of traveling feet, and the hallway lit by dusted over glass lights hanging on the wall. Behind some doors there was noise, nothing discernible, but giving off the bumping and breathing of life, of the people who were in the rooms.

"We are walking through the ruins of the Hotel Du Pomme, shut down and out of use many years ago, but I promise you not abandoned," he said ahead as we rounded a corner. In this one some of the lights had gone dull, the doors were fewer and far in between, and no life dusted behind them. "It's the place where me and my boys made our homes, a place that could be yours as well if you wanted. For now I'm going to show you the outside works, the parts and pieces that make it pretty. And of course, if you choose to stay, you'll see everything else, the bones and the muscles. You'll get to explore and ravage the place, and where better way to have fun than in old abandoned buildings."

There was a certain drawl to voice, dancing on the edge of his syllables. It was for show, buried beneath the layers of mirth and delight, like an actor of stage trying to make his monologue grander than it was. Like he was standing on the stage where the audience worshiped him. Then there was a swift turn and more light hit my eyes, coming in suddenly from an armada of windows, cast along in front of me. We were on a ledge, with rounded staircases on either side, dark tinted bannisters, splintered here and there, guiding their way down. A chandelier hung a little above us, finding its noose in a rounded ceiling covered in delicate gold designs, interlocked with the same dark red of the walls. The glass bulbs on the chandelier were dulled yellow and falling apart, half of its body already withered away. And below I saw the a wooden desk and furniture, sofas and tables, spilling over with books and magazines, plants alive and crawling up over posts, and other ones brown and dead. It was a lobby, a lobby to one of those hotels so fancy it announced itself in the opening. And along the front walls, the round glass doors, that spun and spun, the ones that you get trapped in as a child. And all along the front were windows too, with dark frames, a few broken and shattered. I could smell the sea through them, and the smell of the hotel, distinctly mixing along it. It was both part beautiful and ruined, I felt like I had crawled into one of the intricate rooms of the "I Spy" books I played when I was younger. I never knew I could touch that world, and I didn't know that as Peter showed me more I would only find myself buried further in it.

"It's great isn't it?" he said, and suddenly he was beside me, smiling the smile that shouldn't exist and the eyes that fixed me on point. I was leaning over the bannister, taking in the world I had stepped into. I hadn't noticed I had been leaning, and hadn't noticed Peter moving to meet beside me. He moved like a shadow, with no sound to warn me.

"Du Pomme...it means apple?" I said, a smile tickling at the corners of my mouth. It was ridiculous to smile, the way that I was, but I felt tugging inside of me.

"Yes, it does," he said and almost impossibly his smile grew bigger. "But I don't think the Frenchman who owned this place ever expected the dumb Americans to figure out."

I laughed then, a small tiny one, that came out more like a fast breath than an actual laugh.

"But Wendy," he said, spinning around and heading towards the stairs, "we have more to explore and you are not allowed anymore questions until the end."

And as silly as it sounded, I was excited.

Peter Pan showed me just enough of the Hotel Du Pomme to make me feel like I was dreaming. There was the ballroom, which seemed to stretch on and on, with two more dulled chandeliers and tables and chairs pushed against the walls. A once golden hardwood floor and portraits of people maybe famous in the past. There was a small theater, with seats half ripped up and backstage dressing and makeup rooms. The controls for it still worked, and Peter climbed in a booth in the back, flipping switches and filling the stage up with patches of blue, green, and golden lights. There was an orchestra pit a few feet down below, with knocked over music stands and a few instruments covered in rust, their once silver skin peeking through—a flute and french horn, a few tambourines and a cracked violin. More hallways and doors, hallways all painted in red. I felt life behind some doors and none behind others, and found myself tracing my fingers along the doors of an elevator he told me hadn't worked since 1932, right before the depression swept through and buried the little French man in too much debt to run a hotel.

He talked the whole time, telling me facts about the hotel, telling me random names that of which boys were in which rooms, names that bounded around like children in a rush and left my brain. And if at all I opened my mouth to speak, he shushed me with a little grin. He didn't tell me anything else, how I got here, why this place existed, or who he was beyond his name. He delivered everything like a grand monologue on stage. I was just as fascinated by him as I was by the place, by the way his legs and hair moved, all in one motion. He spun around corners, and smiled with a square jaw. At a few moments he would scoot closer, and my clustered blush would appear again, he felt like an extension of my fascination. I couldn't tell if it was minutes or hours, but I felt removed from life, and like the only thing that existed was Neverland, Peter, and me. Finally we made our way back into the lobby, the placed still bathed in gold, only shallower and darker, time had passed and I hadn't really been lost.

"So, question time Wendy?" he said, leaning back into one of the sofas, stretching his legs unto the table. He did everything without thinking, he owned this world. I had so many questions to ask, and I felt like I could never get through them all.

"You've shown me the place, but what is it for? And you keep mentioning boys but I've seen no one. Just, how can...just, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel?" I blurted, embarrassed by my awkwardness, leaning into the edge of the armrest. I couldn't sit down next to him.

He lit up, his cheeks pulling up and eyes bright like tree leaves after rain.

"Neverland's exact reason for existence can't be given right now, but I can say this, it exists for the people who don't want to exist. For the ones who want time to stop. The boys, they're my friends, the ones who needed to escape. Me and Tink, we found this place. Found it away from all the bullshit of the world, the jobs and traffic, the constant blur of people, the demand of small talk. I can't stand it out there, truth be told, I can't stand the messiness of it all. In here it's good and I'm safe, we're all safe from fucking life. That's the best thing about Neverland. You never have to deal with the bullshit that is life," he said, and unlike all the others it didn't come out like some grand monologue. It came out like he was lost and the words were his way of finding himself back.

"Shit, you're like some lost John Green novel I fell into," I said, smiling to myself. And then I saw my phone, slipping out of the pocket of my jeans as I leaned over. The battery was nearly dead, but it still shouted the time at me. The rock in my stomach shifted forward and knocked the wind out of me. I had work in an hour and an apartment back home, I had Lily and Rufio waiting for me, there but still not. I had the stuff with Mary and school coming up, more hours to beg for at work, and bills due in two days. I had all the bullshit, and no amount of exploring old hotels with strangers was going to make it go away.

"I need to go," I said, I was up, but didn't know where to run. My heart was pounding and I was scared again, scared at life beating my ass. He looked at me in confusion and then at my phone, a realization casting itself over his face.

He was still on the couch and so when he looked up at me, his face more boy than man. "You know, you could forget them all Wendy, forget it all and never go back."

But I couldn't. And whoever he was, he didn't see that.

"No, I can't. You said if I let you show me around that I could go. Well I did, so you better fucking keep your promise, okay?" I said, and somehow I was on the verge of tears. I couldn't breathe for a moment, and felt trapped, felt like I needed to launch myself into the window to get some air. But I didn't, Peter just stood up, pulled out a phone of his own, and texted someone. Peter didn't look at me, and I sat of the edge of the couch biting my nails. A few minutes later Toodles, I had remembered, showed up at the top of the stairs. The moment Toodles was in my sight, Peter disappeared up the stairs. Quicker than I could turn and watch him go and quiet as a shadow. I let the disappointment sink in, mixed with all my fear and anxiety.

Toodles walked out the door and I followed him without a word, and noticed the outside of the hotel looked just as grand as the inside. There was a single car in the parking lot, a beat contraption with a rusted roof and different color doors.

"Where are we going?" I asked, and followed him to it.

"To the train station," he said and opened the the door for me. He still looked pleasant, still looked just as boyish as he had in the bar the night before. The air surprised me outside the sun burned my eyes, it was suddenly noiser than I remembered all of the world to be, it suddenly felt louder than I could handle. As we pulled away I checked my messages with the dying life of my battery. Not a single one from Lily or Dad, not a single person to care. We moved through the town, encountering cars and loading docks, all of this life I had forgotten about. Neverland was along the bay, a few miles from the train station, and past the point of town I ever traveled to. To anyone else it looked like an abandoned hotel, and I felt struck by how strange it was to know what was going on inside.

* * *

He delivered me to the station, giving me a ticket to take back to the center of this sprawled out town, I felt like I was waking up from a dream. Every little part of me that I had felt in Neverland was fading. It had only been a few hours there, but I felt myself dulling now, I felt myself falling back into it all. By the time I was back at my house, grabbing my clothes, and running the two blocks up the road to the store, I felt like it had been a dream. Some fucked up childish dream induced by one heck of a drink.

My coworker glared at me when I walked in the door. I had been her relief and I was twenty minutes late. With a huff he untied her apron and walked out of the store, and I assumed my post behind the register.

It took fifteen minutes for someone to come up, fifteen minutes I knew because I counted them ticking away at the clock, lulling me in waves of everything happening around me. I swiped her books through, a plastered smile on my face. She handed me a coupon, one that expired yesterday.

"Excuse me mam." I said, morphing the smile into an apology. "But this coupon expired yesterday, I can't use it with this purchase."

She looked at me like I slapped her in the face. "But it's only one day, how can you do this. I'm a regular here, and you can't just let me use it."

Her voice was half anger, half begging, and there was no way I recognized her sagged face as a regular. I didn't have the energy to speak, and so shook my head.

She huffed, "This is ridiculous, I demand to see the manager."

I closed my eyes and felt it just then. I felt all the fucking bullshit.

"You know what, I'm the manager on duty. But I really don't fucking care," I said and untied my apron. I threw it off my head, took a deep breath, and left.

* * *

**So fin. **

**Added in some lines during time jumps, to make things less confusing. My wonderful penpal has agreed to be my beta reader for this chapter and throughout the fic so hopefully grammar and typos are a little less agonizing than previously. Also, I really hope all of the little moments that are references to the original story are coming through. **

**Next chapter whenever :)**


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